November 6, 2013

With Tepco [Tokyo Electric Power Co.] due to begin removing more than 1,300 spent-fuel rod assemblies and nearly 200 fresh ones from the reactor 4 pool at the Fukushima No. 1 plant this month, global pressure is mounting to allow an international task force to monitor and assist the highly hazardous operation.

A former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland, anti-nuclear groups in Japan and abroad, nuclear engineers, doctors and radiologists are warning of the dangers of the operation Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to carry out and are calling for pressure on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration to be more globally transparent.

“It is urgently needed to set up an international task force to assist Japan by deploying all possible means to reduce the risks of the imminent first unloading of spent fuel from unit 4,” ex-Ambassador to Switzerland Mitsuhei Murata said in a recent letter to U.S. President Barack Obama.

Journalist and activist Harvey Wasserman, writing for Global Research, an independent research and media organization based in Montreal, claims Tepco does not have the scientific, engineering or financial resources to extract the fuel on its own.

The extraction “may be humankind’s most dangerous moment since the Cuban missile crisis. We are petitioning the United Nations and Obama to mobilize the global scientific community to take charge of the nuclear power plant and the job of moving these fuel roads to safety,” he wrote in September.